{"id":53968,"date":"2014-02-11T05:03:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T12:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=53968"},"modified":"2021-03-16T10:15:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T16:15:57","slug":"2014-02-11-real-estate-license-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2014-02-11-real-estate-license-necessary","title":{"rendered":"Is a Real Estate License Necessary?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This question comes up on the forums with utmost regularity \u2013 like every other week.<\/p>\n

Investors to be want to know if having a license gives them a leg up on competition.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that there is a definitive answer to this question \u2013 it\u2019s a personal thing on many levels.<\/p>\n

But, surprise \u2013 surprise, I have an opinion<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

How I Became a Licensee<\/b><\/h2>\n

\"Patrisha_MyThis is actually somewhat amusing.\u00a0 Meet my wife, the love of my life, the mother of my children Patrisha Leybovich. That\u2019s her on the right, and I am sorry about the quality of the photo \u2013 phone camera.\u00a0 This was taken a few a year ago when Patrisha took me to Cincinnati to listen to Gil Shaham, whom I\u2019ve known for ages ever since the long-forgotten Aspen Festival days, play the Brahms Violin Concerto.<\/p>\n

We rented a room in a little Chateau across the alley from the concert hall for a day.\u00a0 Gil was Gil, and that says it all.\u00a0 The food at the Chateau was 5-star.\u00a0 The room was small, but believe me when I say \u2013 I did not notice\u2026<\/p>\n

What you need to know is that the 103-pound gorgeous little thing in this picture packs the energy of a 230-pound ice hockey player coming at you at a speed of 20 miles per hour \u2013 it hurts on impact, and most people wisely step out of the way.\u00a0 In this way, I am not unlike most people and step out of the way more often than not\u2026<\/p>\n

Anyhow, Patrisha and I made a deal about 7 years ago \u2013 she takes care of today, and I take care of tomorrow, financially speaking.\u00a0 She has been on board with my endeavors in real estate ever since she figured out that I don\u2019t suck at it.\u00a0 So, she let me run wild doing my creative finance bit for about 5 years, which brings us to how I became a Realtor.<\/p>\n

At Dinner<\/b><\/h2>\n

About a year and a half ago, she took me out to dinner.\u00a0 The stake was good, and so was the wine \u2013 she was softening me up, and I should have known but I am not too sharp that way.\u00a0 You need to know that by this point in time I\u2019d assembled 18 units which were cash flowing nicely under 100% leverage (you knew I\u2019d\u00a0throw that in).<\/p>\n

It was apparent to both of us that even if I did nothing more but meticulously take care of the property and allow tenants to pay down the mortgage<\/a>, over time Patrisha and I would be just fine.<\/p>\n

You also know, if you\u2019ve been reading my articles for a while, that I average one deal per year; it is always a multi-family, but it\u2019s never more than one.\u00a0 The size of the deal gets bigger each year, currently I am working on my first syndicated deal, but it\u2019s always just one per year.<\/p>\n

However, what it looks like to my wife is that I am busy for about 4 \u2013 5 months out of the year while I stabilize the project, and then I just take life easy \u2013 while she goes to work.\u00a0 See the problem\u2026?<\/p>\n

Well \u2013 Patrisha saw the problem.\u00a0 She was happy with the \u201cwe\u2019ll be just fine\u201d part of what I\u2019d accomplished, but not so happy with the \u201cover time\u201d part, and having softened me up she said to me:<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney \u2013 I love you, and I think you are hot <\/i>(she didn\u2019t actually say that last thing, but I think it works in this context \u2013 don\u2019t you?).\u00a0 \u00a0You\u2019ve been doing very well on keeping your end of the bargain taking care of our retirement, and I agree that we will be just fine.\u00a0 But, if you think that I am going to schlep my ass to work for the next 15 years while you sit at home in you underwear <\/i>(that actually happened), you got another thing coming\u2026do something – go get a license!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I Got a License<\/b><\/h2>\n

It was the easiest thing to do to comply with my wife\u2019s wishes of being more busy.\u00a0 I tried to tell her that I\u2019d be no good at showing people pretty pink bathrooms, but I conceded that if nothing else, having a license<\/a> would add to my education and put me in the flow of information.<\/p>\n

Has it had any positive impact, and will it in your case?<\/p>\n

Yes \u2013 having a license has had some impact, though it has been marginal.\u00a0 Having a license and being known in my town as a Realtor has added some clout, but not with the general public \u2013 with the other Realtors.<\/p>\n

The 10-unit I talked about here<\/a> was brought to me by a colleague and I have to believe that being there at the right time, which was a function of having a license, was the driver in that deal.\u00a0 Also, I did sell a few things to tenants that were ready to move on, and investor friends.<\/p>\n

But, That\u2019s It\u2026<\/b><\/h2>\n

By and large, in terms of making money with my license \u2013 I don\u2019t. \u00a0Being a real estate agent is very hard work indeed, and nobody should believe anything different. \u00a0I certainly don\u2019t want to work that hard for that little.\u00a0 There are flat out easier ways to make money.\u00a0 I sell a course online and in one year it generated almost as much revenue as an average real estate agent earns in my state in the first year \u2013 most quit after the first year\u2026<\/p>\n

And I didn\u2019t have to leave my house to do it.\u00a0 And did I mention the cash flow from the 28 units I now own which takes on average of 5 hours per month of my time?\u00a0 (I am about to change all that with this syndicate, but that’s different…)<\/p>\n

Furthermore, some people say that a license allows you to save money at the front and back doors on your own deals.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the thing guys; if all you want to do is chase REOs and other MLS stuff, then perhaps you can use your license.\u00a0 Personally, I go for the OFF-MARKET stuff where having a license means nothing.<\/p>\n

Besides, if a Realtor brings me a deal, do you think I am going to nickel and dime them \u2013 of course not.\u00a0 First of all, I know how hard they had to work to find the off-market deal.\u00a0 Secondly, they didn\u2019t have to bring it to me, but they did \u2013 they can keep the commission.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s how they make a living; it\u2019s not how I do it\u2026\u00a0 Makes sense?<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n

So \u2013 should you get a license?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What does your wife think?<\/em>
\nPhoto Credit:\u00a0afagen<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This question comes up on the forums with utmost regularity \u2013 like every other week. Investors to be want to know if having a license gives them a leg up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":810,"featured_media":54051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-investing-for-beginners"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/810"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}